Study: Ebay, Amazon the most visible search advertisers

It should come as no surprise that two internet giants are leading the way in search visibility, but it may surprise you that they're leading in different areas. According to new data released by Searchmetrics online auction site Ebay is winning at product listing ads (PLA) while online retailer Amazon is winning at pay-per-click (PPC) ads.

Here's how the numbers break down: Searchmetrics ranks brands based on visibility scores from PLAs and PPC to determine how often a brand's ads are seen. The result: Ebay has a Google PLA (product listing ad) visiblity rate of 7,591,817 - meaning their PLAs are 'seen' by more people than other brands. Amazon, meanwhile, is leading in the PPC category with a 9,381,597 visibility rate.

"PLAs can pay off for retail advertisers, because the market is still relatively cheap at the moment, mainly due to the higher CTR com­pared with AdWords ads. You would expect more people to click on a PLA because they include an image, which stands out on the search results page. They are also likely to be more effective for retailers because Google shows them when it deems that a person is showing purchase intent - in other words they are performing product related searches," said Marcus Tober, founder and CTO, Searchmetrics.